Return of the Vinyl Album 490
bulled writes "NPR ran a story this morning about the comeback of vinyl. It seems that sales of new vinyl records are up about 10%; sales will approach a million this year (as against half a billion for CDs). NPR mentioned the popularity of a turntable with a USB interface — they didn't specify the brand; could be this one, or this — and speculated on other possible reasons for the resurgence. They mentioned sound quality and lack of DRM as possible causes. Sound quality can and will be debated, but DRM rates a resounding 'Duh.'"
Not surprising. (Score:5, Insightful)
Flashback (Score:5, Insightful)
its hip to own vinyl (Score:2, Insightful)
This too shall pass.
USB? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not surprising. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's a fashion trend (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Flashback (Score:4, Insightful)
So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)
What am I missing?
Re:its hip to own vinyl (Score:5, Insightful)
Vinyl's Are Still Good (Score:1, Insightful)
Collectability, nothing more (Score:2, Insightful)
If someone could set up shop pressing 8-tracks, they'd sell too.. People collect 'em
12" records have nice art and look good on the wall, etc.
Re:Analogue vs Digital (Score:4, Insightful)
If records really want to make a comeback, they'll come up with a nondestructive way to read the disc, like a laser beam. Oops, they did that. It's called a CD.
I agree that high quality analog recordings are a good thing to keep around for posterity, but analog recordings certainly aren't better for home reproduction (they'll get a little worse every time you play them), unless you don't mind having to repurchase albums every so often. You don't need DRM when your recording format expires and can't be reproduced easily at home. There is, after all, no "vinyl burner" on the shelf at Best Buy for $40.
Re:Copyright (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Copyright (Score:3, Insightful)
It shouldn't even be a crime.
It's an obsolete social mechanism that causes more than enough harm to offset any socially redeeming qualities it has.
This imbalance between harm and benefit becomes greater as our technological capacities increase.
If you make any long term plans around copyright continuing to exist, you're a fool, because it's not going to.
It's just that one extra step. (Score:3, Insightful)
All it takes is removing a couple steps to make something extremely attractive to the consumer
Re:It's a fashion trend (Score:3, Insightful)
When the apocolypse comes, give me a pin, a piece of cardboard, something to use as a spindle, and a steady finger. I'll still be rockin'.
Not surprising-Art for spaces sake. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Copyright (Score:1, Insightful)
Sleeping with your wife while you're at work doesn't deprive you of your wife, as long as she's there for you when you want her.
Therefore, sleeping with your wife is OK!
Thanks!!!
Re:Copyright (Score:5, Insightful)
Laser Pickups (Score:3, Insightful)
Laser pickups themselves wouldn't wear out like a stylus used to, which used to put the turntable out of commission until a new one was bought. Which was sometimes expensive, especially when the electromagnetic transducer cartridge needed repair/replacement. Those were expensive, especially the really hifi ones. Today, laser pickups would be cheaper than that old precision EM stuff. And they could still be analog, like an original videodisc, with audiophiles fighting over imperceptible differences in the analog/digital converter.
I'd get one. Vinyl sounded so much better at its best than any equivalent priced digital system I've ever heard. But then, I prefer to listen to music that was produced for vinyl's acoustic response. Kids today could get into it, too, though, if it really is a hybrid of phat old analog and cheap new digital.
Re:Analogue vs Digital (Score:3, Insightful)
[cue surface noise at -38dB]
[needle drop BANG]
skritch...skritch...Yeah, man...POP...Iskritchgree with CLICK you totaskritchly. NothinPOPg like the skritchdelity of vinyl...skritch.
Oh, you meant tape?
[cue tape hiss at -60db]
That's better. But how many machines are going to be around and serviced 50 years from now to play back that carefully stored tape? Lots of rubber idler wheels to dry out and crack, capacitors to leak, parts to become unobtainable, etc. Let's hope that someone is storing a whole bunch of MCI JH-24s in a secure undisclosed underground bunker, along with a stockpile of parts and manuals....
Re:Analogue vs Digital (Score:5, Insightful)
Four basic things contribute to the fidelity of all recording formats:
1. The tolerances of recording equipment. (e.g. How closely the signal produced by a microphone resembles the soundwave that generated that signal.)
2. Generational loss in mastering
3. Manufacturing tolerances that affect playback
4. Tolerances of reproduction equipment.
All formats are limited by #1, and #4 is in the hands of each individual end-user. (i.e. If your stereo sucks, what format you prefer won't matter much.) However, number 2 and 3 are biggies.
Generational loss means that if you want to do anything more than slap a live recording onto a LP with no post-production whatsover, the quality will suck. Nobody masters albums in analogue these days. 99.9% of the vinyl being released was mastered digitally and then dumped back to analogue, so kiss that analogue "magic" goodbye.
The manufacturing tolerances of LP's are also a huge issue. When was the last time you picked up a micrometer made out of vinyl? It's not exactly the most ideal material for making something that has to have hyper accurate spatial dimensions. It's easy to scratch, and has a large coefficient of thermal expansion. Just play it back at a different temperature than it was cut at and you're already pretty badly off. The tolerances of a pressed vinyl disk are also larger than you might think, and have the effect of greatly reducing the practical information capacity. (i.e. In theory, analogue recordings contain infinite infomation. If you could record a waveform with even just very very large precision in vinyl, digital media would be useless because you could pack much more data into an analogue pressing. Digital media dominates today. Guess why? The precision of vinyl sucks dingo balls.) Everything that can go wrong with vinyl will have a direct impact on the sound. The lowly CD, by comparison, has built in parity information that allow any decent CD-reader to extract bit-perfect copies that would be identical to the master.
That being said, many CD recordings do suck, but that's the fault of mixing engineers who want to push it to 11 instead of mastering at an appropriate volume that won't clip the waveform. If a recording is mangled in this manner it's going to sound like crap no matter what you record it on.
Re:Flashback (Score:3, Insightful)
although that said, you will see all the big name dj's using the pioneer cdj-1000 which work on cd's and not vinyl. it is the industry standard as you can play a burnt cd just like a record (even scratching). There are websites out there that will convert the vinyl record to digital and let you buy the mp3 as drm free, such as beatport [beatport.com]
I love my collection of vinyl music, and although the cdj-1000's are very cool I still much prefer to mix on my old school vinyl decks.
PRM.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Flashback (Score:5, Insightful)
Others like Mark Farina use cds. Final Scratch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Scratch [wikipedia.org] is still in use as well.
Judging by what was seen at the winter music conference this year, th stand set-up is four decks- two for cds and two for vinyl. Five years ago vinyl was the standard, but times are still changing.
Vinyl is still in common use, esp. for local or regional artists, but of the people I know who actually make their living off of playing music none use vinyl exclusively anymore.
Re:There's no debate (Score:5, Insightful)
Now the interesting part. It seems that humans don't really care about sound fidelity. They care about things sounding good, which is actually not the same thing. The vinyl records introduce a whole range of coloring distortions into the audio. This is made far worse by the noise reduction circuitry and lousy, thermally varient amplifiers (I'm talking to you, tube-amp owners). This radically changes the way the sound comes out (go ahead, compare the waveforms using an oscope). It also makes them softer, warmer, and generally more pleasant. The real world has a lot of harsh edges, ringing tones, and crackles that really don't sound too pleasing.
So, in conclusion, vinyl is crap for reproducing audio. It's good for making sounds pleasing to humans (except for the horrible scratching sound, of course). Ever wonder why the totaly voice-synth'd Britney Spears albums sell so many?. It's the same reason that people like vinyl records.
Vinyl Makes Music Fun Again (Score:5, Insightful)
At 25 I just inherited my dad's vinyl collection and I've found they make music fun again. When digital distribution of started to catch on I stopped buying CDs, but then it felt like I was just buying filenames. Even when I occasionally bought a CD, I would just rip it to MP3 and put it on my shelf never to bother with it again. Convenient yes, fun not so much.
With vinyl all this convenience goes away. It's fun to go to the record store and sift through 1.00$ bins, or find pressings of newer groups. Then when you get home, you play it. You don't put it into your computer and hit button. You open it up, carefully take the disk out, notice the large liner notes, spin up the table and enjoy. It's more of an event than just rip. burn. play.
Sure it's analog, and there's the occasional distortion, but with a decent cartridge and stylus it's amazing how good new vinyl sounds. Finding spare sleeves to put your favorite albums in then putting the cover them on your wall make for some good excellent wall art too. To me it's similar to why I buy books even when I can get e-books. Life it's just about making everything streamlined and perfect, sometimes you need a little analog grit to keep it interesting.
Of course, I negated myself already by writing about ripping vinyl with 100% Free Software [blogspot.com], but that's more for getting my dads old albums onto CD for him.
Re:its hip to own vinyl (Score:2, Insightful)
Second, it gives you more room for artwork. Third, it's better for audio archival (i have plenty of CDs from 1988 that are pitted being stored in jewel cases on a dark shelf) while i have plenty of records produced 20 years before i was bornn that still sound perfect.
So besides the economics, aesthetics, & archival reasons? Yes you're right "audiophile" lo-fi/no-fi acts are getting into the game and "squeezing in" on punk/hardcore acts like mine. But you know what? I'll keep producing & collecting vinyl of bands I'm into and you can keep getting all your tips from the jackasses at Hydrogen audio who are buying $700+ turntables.
You have to understand that there are multiple "markets" involved in the production and consumption of the media you're talking about. It seems that point was missed on you (and i won't even start up on the DJ sector).
"DRM rates a resounding 'Duh.'" (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you quite serious?
Let's think about the actual downsides of DRM. Needing a special player? Turntables are not exactly readily available all over. Not being able to make copies? How do you intend to make copies of a vinyl album? Not being able to just drop songs on your MP3 player and go? Not going to be easy with vinyl.
If you want to produce a readily-transportable, widely compatible, copy-able file from a vinyl album (such as an MP3), you're going to need to record the output from playing it on a turntable, and then digitize that. Which you could do with any DRMed file. The old "analog hole".
I know this is /., but not every story that involves audio needs to whine about DRM.
Easy answer (Score:3, Insightful)
(It doesn't help that some DRM/watermarking techniques for digital sound degrades the quality further than the mere absolute rates would account for.)
Frankly, I don't expect this to be a major resurgence of vinyl/analogue formats, but if it forces even a few labels to beef up the stuff they're producing, I'm all for it. Who cares if vinyl "wins", if we all "win" by getting a better product? Of course, a better product really isn't likely, but the 0.01% hope that something could improve is better than the near-certainty of nothing changing if nothing challenges the status quo.
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure. You can add distortion and noise either way.
Clearly people like the sound of distorted, noisy playback. I just for the life of me can't understand why.
Re:Analogue vs Digital (Score:3, Insightful)
This would not work at all for an analog master - you are stuck with only one "master" on whatever format you recorded it on. A good example of why this is bad is the Apollo moon tapes [wikipedia.org]. If these were digital, it wouldn't be such a shame that the originals were missing, and it wouldn't matter that only one facility in the world is still capable of playing them back.
Sound quality. (Score:3, Insightful)
CDs win for exact replication, but for things like club music, with lots of sharp synth sounds, bass, etc. A little "natural interference" from the actual physical motion of the vibrating stylus can make it sound "naturally artificial", or, quite to the effect such music attempts to achieve, surreal.
Plus, spinning vinyl is a HELL of a lot of fun. CD decks, not so much.
Re:Digital Vinyl data capacity blows CDs out of wa (Score:4, Insightful)
Lets compare this with a cd which is much much smaller than a record and can hold 700 MB per side (a two-sided one would hold ~1.4GB). Not quite up to the theoretical maximum that you claim your record could get, however consider the size, or the fact that a DVD, which is the same dimensions as the CD, and uses similar technology as it can hold up to 4.7GB on a single layer disc. This is far more data than the record can hold, and requires less sensitive electronics, and much less processing power to decode.
Looks like my "CD" beats your record after all.
Re:Not surprising. (Score:3, Insightful)
My only complants about turn-tables and vinyl
1) gotta replace the stylus from time to time. This is a $20 item
2) If not a dirct drive, you gotta replace the belts. You can get away with boiling the belt once or twice to shrink it. This is a $20.00 item.
3) You gotta pay attention to important things like ground straps so you don't pick up that 60 cycle hum on your cartridge.
4) Since most units don't offer line level outs, you need a pre-amp if your amp does not support turn tables.
5) Vinyl is rather fragile and scraches easily.
6) It's not portable. I do remember as a child I had a fisher price style turn table that took D cells, but it wrecked vinyl.
Aside from these complaints, most of which can be resolved, vinyl is great. Well worth investing the dollars to convert to CD so you don't have to spend $20 and $20 over and over again.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Copyright (Score:2, Insightful)
How? I mean, effectively. Will the peasants in the jungle even be interested in this panacea they're being offered? Or will it merely be someone thrusting "civilization" and "culture" upon them? Will they be interested in using computers to access this information, or will it merely homogenize them into the vast global monoculture?
Is it? Quality, anyone? Or have the great works of art that form the foundation of our history and culture been the work of hobbyists? Professional writers, musicians, painters, etc...have been around a long time, as much for the passion of their work as for the ability to pay their bills and put food on the table. In a world that is so quickly migrating to obtaining all this culture via a vast electronic network, how will these professionals (the one's who created the genuinely powerful, memorable, and quality material) be able to afford to continue to do so? Will the great works of tomorrow be the homogenized sound of Billy in his bedroom in his spare time, scarcely able to use the tools the develop such a work? When will he hone his skills? Has he heard of craft?
Where's the money gonna come from?
You don't think artists try to do that all the time? Except for the large corporations and the elect few, art/music/writing/etc... is not all that lucrative a career choice unless you take advantage of every avenue you can possibly exploit to make money off of your work (and it is WORK.) Eliminating copyright makes it that much harder. Now, I'll be the first to admit that our copyright laws may have pushed the boundaries too far (I don't need a copyright that continues for an entire lifetime after I'm dead and gone, and frankly neither do my heirs), but eliminating copyright does not fix the problem.
This kind of mentality is part of what is killing the potential quality of art. Not the innovation part (for that I applaud you...artists should be innovative in all things, including how they do business), but the notion that anyone can do it, that it's easy, and soon everyone will do it and that's the end of that. Well, five minutes of fame on YouTube is fine, but that's it. It's no guarantee of establishing a place in culture except as a footnote. It's no guarantee of quality.
At which point, the only thing holding us back from doing so will be small-minded dickheads harping about their "rights".
And then it occurs to me: this is all about the free lunch.
But if you're a consumer, get everything you can for as free as you can. If you're not willing to pay for quality, copy it. Spread it around. There was one copy that the artist made 65 cents off of. That's enough. That's all it's worth, because the copies are free.
Rights. Creators don't have rights. Only those looking for handouts do.
John Peel (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Digital Vinyl data capacity blows CDs out of wa (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Flashback (Score:3, Insightful)
DJ Times: You said that you're using the Pioneer CDJ-1000 -- have you seen the MK3 version?
Oakenfold: The Pioneer CDJ-1000 is such a masterful piece of machinery, I don't know how you can improve on that unless it sprouts legs and makes me a vodka-tonic.
The gold standard in DJing is still a pair of Technics 1210 turntables, but in a scene that's "all about the music" this doesn't matter to a lot of people besides elitist DJs. As the parent noted, Oakie is using CDJ-1000s, but that's not the end of it. Laptops are becoming a more common sight at raves. Ferry Corsten did an entire album in Cubase and Ableton Live. The only ones making a big fuss about how it has to be vinyl or nothing are elitists. I could fire up Ableton, add its Vinyl Distortion filter to a track ripped directly from a CD, and play it through a PA and you'd swear you were hearing vinyl.